Best Friends
by Kalira69
Summary: Best friends should stick together, and that's exactly what Hunk and Lance intend to do! (Or: Hunk and Lance built a blanket fort and talk about the future.) Written for Voltron Fluff Week 2017. Pre-Galaxy Garrison.
1. Best Friends

Written for Day 2 of Voltron Fluff Week - prompt: Blanket Forts/Pillow Fights. (No pillow fight here, though.)

* * *

Hunk yawned, rolling over and staring blankly at the ceiling. Something had woken him up. What.

He sighed, shifting vaguely, and closed his eyes again sleepily. He jerked as a muted rapping sound disrupted his drift back towards sleep. Wait. Rapping.

Hunk flailed up, blanket sliding away, and rolled onto his knees, crawling along his bed to the window. He pushed the drapes aside.

"Lance?" He blinked at his friend perched on the roof outside his window, yawned again, and- Ah. Right. Hunk shook himself, feeling foolish, and unlatched the window, pushing the pane up. "Hey. What's up?" he asked, moving back.

Lance tumbled through his window in a tangle of blanket and too-long limbs - he'd been doing that for a couple of years now, but it was definitely getting more pronounced lately. He let out a badly-stifled laugh. "Too excited to sleep!" Lance grinned at Hunk, popping upright again, his hair a staticky mess. "I guess you're not, and I woke you." He frowned.

Hunk grinned back and closed the window again. "I'm never too excited to sleep." He caught hold of the bright blue blanket wrapped around Lance's shoulders and dragged his friend in closer for a hug. "It's okay though."

Lance's smile returned, and Hunk pulled away only enough to reach for the lamp on his bedside table.

"No, hang on!" Lance said urgently, catching Hunk's sleeve, and he paused, looking back at his friend. "Let's," he paused, and Hunk nudged him gently, curious, "let's build a fort, like we used to when we were staying up late talking." he suggested, squirming.

Hunk laughed, then covered his mouth quickly, eying the door out to the hallway. No sound came from his sisters' rooms, though, and he relaxed again. "Yeah, come on." Hunk agreed, sliding off the bed.

Lance nearly bounced as he followed, and they soon had the mattress dragged down off the bed, pinning the spare blankets from Hunk's closet up over it, making a cosy tent. It was a lot tighter than it used to be, Hunk thought as he squeezed in beside Lance, but it was kind of fun to try this again. It had been a while.

Lance wrapped himself in his blue blanket and leaned against Hunk's shoulder.

"Still fun." Hunk said, tugging his own blanket over his lap and cuddling against his friend in return. He yawned, though he was mostly awake now. "Why did we stop doing this?" he asked idly, switching on the flashlight he'd snagged from his nightstand.

"I think we decided a few years ago that we were too grown-up for blanket forts. Or pillow fights." Lance said, with an exaggerated gasp. "What fools we!"

Hunk covered his mouth to stifle himself, giggling. "We decided a lot of things weren't grown-up enough for us then, didn't we?"

"Yeah. . ." Lance fidgeted, and Hunk wrapped an arm around his friend, peaceably waiting for whatever was bothering him to spill out. It always did, with Lance - especially if you stayed quiet.

"I kind of lied." Lance said eventually. Hunk was kind of concerned by his tone, but only kept waiting silently. "I _am_ excited, but I'm also . . . nervous."

"Why are you nervous?" Hunk asked, though not really surprised. "I'm sure you did _great_! They'd have to be crazy not to want you."

Lance fidgeted. "Yeah. . . You think?" he asked, smiling a little. "Iverson _did_ sound pretty encouraging when we talked to him. . . Really, we're just waiting to hear that we're accepted, right?" he said, straightening suddenly.

He ducked back down quickly, as his head had hit the top of the blanket fort.

" _Absolutely_." Hunk grinned, dragging Lance down a little more and messing with his already spiked-up hair.

Lance didn't protest, flinging himself down and mostly across Hunk's legs. "I'm glad we're going together." he said, smiling up at Hunk. "I don't think I could go so far away without you."

Hunk swallowed, his throat going tight for a moment. "Me either." he said, shaking his head. "Best friends ought to stick together, right?"

"Always." Lance held up his hand, pinky hooked out, and Hunk laughed and curled his own through it, like they had sealed deals between them since the first time when they were kids and Hunk's family had just moved in.

"Always." Hunk agreed. They'd stuck together through everything since they'd first become friends - when Lance had tumbled boldly into Hunk's backyard, looked him up and down, and immediately dragged him into a game. At the end of the day he'd grabbed Hunk's hand, explained pinky-swears, and declared they would be best friends, always.

"I'm more worried about flying." Hunk confided, feeling a little queasy just at the thought. "Why do we have to go so _high_?" Hunk hadn't enjoyed the few flights he'd been on in his life, really. He _wanted_ to be a space engineer - it was a _fascinating_ field, and the Garrison would let him be on the forefront of every discovery in it and even making his own! And he wanted to stay with Lance, too, even as they got older. . . They both had.

But Hunk kind of wished he could do both from closer to the ground.

"Aw, man, don't worry, just stick with me and it'll all be great!" Lance swore, punching one hand up. "I'll be the best pilot _ever_ , just watch."

"You'd better be." Hunk teased, slouching down a little more and playfully elbowing Lance. "I only want to fly with you - once we're all through training and stuff, you know." he added, knowing they'd probably be assigned all over the place at first.

"We'll be the best they've seen, both of us, just you _wait_." Lance said, determined, and gave a short, sharp nod. "And we'll stick together." Lance reached up and bumped his fist against Hunk's lax hand.

"It's going to be _amazing_." Hunk said happily, thinking of the machines he'd get to play with, the classes he'd have and the _legendary_ professors that taught at the Garrison. And Lance would be there too, a piece of home.

" _Absolutely_." Lance agreed sleepily. "Best ever, just like us."

"Best ever." Hunk agreed, grinning.


	2. Coda

I had this image from when I first began writing Best Friends, but it didn't quite fit the original story. It stuck around, though, so after a few days I decided to add it in as a coda.

* * *

Talia left Maggie to mind the pancakes and went out to collect the post - early today, but thank heavens, considering what was supposed to be in it. She flipped through the stack of envelopes and her heart leapt when she saw the Galaxy Garrison insignia.

It wasn't . . . _entirely_ a happy feeling, but Talia swallowed down her nerves. Hunk wanted to go, and he would be happy there; Talia wouldn't hold him back because she was worried or because she would miss him.

"Talia!"

Talia looked up and smiled at her neighbour, moving towards the hedge that made up the low barrier between their properties. "Hello, Rosa." she returned.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Rosa said, her smile bright and wide as it always was, "Lance isn't in his room this morning. Could you bring him this?" she asked, passing over another envelope with the Galaxy Garrison insignia.

"Ah. Of course." Talia laughed softly. Another reason she could swallow her fears at sending her little boy away - he wouldn't be going alone. "Do you want me to send him back?" she asked.

"Only when you get tired of him!" Rosa joked. The woman seemed almost constantly cheerful, even amidst the utter _chaos_ of her house - seven children of her own, two stepsons from her husband's first marriage, plus her brother, her wife's uncle, and assorted unrelated friends that her children brought home to her perpetually open doors and open arms.

Talia thought she'd go 'round the twist in her friend's place, but Rosa seemed to thrive in the madness.

"All right then." Talia smiled; Lance was a common fixture at her table, in her house, and had been for years. "You know we love having him."

Rosa grinned and nodded, turning back to her front door.

Talia returned inside, checked that Maggie didn't need help with the pancakes - and that she made _some_ without strawberries, at least, for her sister - and then went upstairs. She tapped on Hunk's door, then opened it, and was a little surprised at what she'd found.

Not that the boys were still asleep, only that they'd revisited old habits and made a blanket fort on the floor. Rather more successfully than their attempts when younger, really. Talia got down on her knees and tugged aside one of the blankets gently.

She smiled at the boys. Lance was a sprawling starfish figure tangled in a blue blanket, draped halfway over and halfway under Hunk, who was hugging his friend tight like he was a very large plush. It was a familiar sight, the pair of them curled up like puppies.

"Hunk, Lance, wake up boys!" Talia called, gently shaking Lance's shoulder. He stirred, mumbling in his sleep, and she laughed. "Come on, kiddo." she coaxed. "There's news for you both." She shook Hunk as well, but he was a little harder to draw a response from, as always - slow to wake, like his father.

Once they were both mostly on their way to being awake, Talia passed over the letters - to Lance, Hunk was still figuring out his limbs again - and told them to come down to pancakes when they were ready.


End file.
